Do You Believe In Sin?
by Tien Riu
Summary: Semi-AU short background on Asuka's influence on Youji. The intention is as a background story for a future series and not an introspective on Youji and Asuka [complete]


Do you believe in sin?

By Tien Riu

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Disclaimer: 

Weiss Kreuz and all characters do not belong to me.  Plot (what little there is of it ^_^) and depiction of characters are mine.  

C&C, R&R and any other derivation there of including flames will be appreciated.  

"**Do you believe in sin?**" is a prequel/short/background to a trilogy of Weiss Kreuz stories (Aya x Youji, yaoi, plot-related) that starts with "**Lust**".  

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      Do you believe in sin?

It is a question Asuka asked me once, shortly after we started working together.

She lay on her side, head supported by one hand as she stared at me.  I remember I could see her fingers through the cascading tendrils of black hair that curled gently around her wrist.  Four years later, before she died, her hair would fall to her waist.  But at that time, it barely brushed her shoulders.  

      I had just finished the case that got me my promotion to detective.  The department declared it a success - we hauled in more than three million American dollars worth of heroine.  We were all heroes for a while - quiet ones since the newspapers weren't allowed to find out till the supplier was tracked down to his source.  Two years later, Asuka and I discovered that a minister in the Department of Civil Defence had taken kick backs to ensure the case was never closed successfully.

    It was midnight, and Asuka should have been in her room, enjoying the overnight stay the doctors had insisted on when they brought her in with what turned out not to be a concussion.  But she was lying on my bed, on the blankets, too close for comfort.

    Later I learned that comfort was everything, but back then I remember the cold steel bars of the side of the bed pressing against my side.

    "Do you believe in sin, Youji?"  in the room, lit only by the glow of cars as they passed the hospital outside my window, her voice was low - a husky rasp that made me think of bedrooms, sweat and cold sheets against warm flesh.

   "Wh-what?"

   "Do you believe in sin?"  she repeated quietly.

   "I - I guess."  I frowned then, "What do you mean by sin? Religious sin?"  I warmed to the topic because it turned my attention from other things related to biblical knowledge, "Or morality and personal ethics?"

   "Religious."  Asuka said, she turned on her side, and I could feel the length of her arm and side pressed against mine, a warm line that seemed to seer through the blanket and the thin cloth of my hospital gown, "'Thou shalt not kill'."  She quoted softly.

   "I - I guess."  

She was staring up at the ceiling, and her eyes glittered in the dark, "My parents were very religious."  She said, "I remember hearing a sermon once - when I was very young.  The minister said that aiding a sin is the same as committing that sin itself."  

   "Oh."  I didn't understand what she was talking about, but she was close enough, in the confines of the hospital bed, that I could smell the scent of her hair - a mixture of smoke, sweat and cinnamon.  

   "Tomorrow, the pusher we got our lead from will be released back onto the streets on bail from his highly paid lawyer."  

   "Yeah - but that's the way the law works - once we get the source, we'll be able to get him again and -"

   "Not him."  Asuka said, "He'll be dead before the end of the day.  Killed by his boss for his part in the bust."  She laughed softly, "He's scum - but it's a sin to kill.  And association to murder is still murder."  She curled against my side, tucking her head against the inside of my chest, "I'm an atheist."  She whispered as she closed her eyes, "It's the only way I can be a good cop.  Funny that."

    She fell asleep there with me - but when I woke up the next morning, she was gone, back in her own bed.  We were promoted together, assigned as partners because we were already friends and worked well together.  

    But it was that night that I started falling in love with her.  

      After she died, after Manx gave me a choice - the chance to kill the people who murdered Asuka in return for my unswerving service to the cause - after I left the hospital, after I joined Omi - I understood what she meant.

    The day after my first mission as Balinese, I got drunk and went to a tattoo parlour.

    I knew her for almost five years, four years in love with her, one as her lover - and it wasn't till she died that I understood what she was saying that night.

    Do you believe in sin?

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**A/N: Tell me what you think? If only to point out plot holes?**


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